


i’m sick of losing soulmates (so where do we begin)

by CoffeeAndArrows



Series: when you figure out (love is all that matters after all) [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series Finale, Post-season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26739436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeAndArrows/pseuds/CoffeeAndArrows
Summary: She’s not entirely sure she’s fully awake but she bangs on Sousa’s door anyway, her frantic knock echoing in the otherwise silent hallway. The handful of seconds before it swings open under her fist feels like an eternity, and for a moment Sousa looks just as panicked as she feels, until his eyes land on her and somehow, without her offering any kind of explanation, he seems to understand.The base isn’t falling apart - just her.or, daisy has a nightmare in which lincoln sacrificing himself and sousa sacrificing himself (in the time loops) gets muddled, which leads to conversations about the past
Relationships: Past Skye | Daisy Johnson/Lincoln Campbell, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Series: when you figure out (love is all that matters after all) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885618
Comments: 26
Kudos: 133





	i’m sick of losing soulmates (so where do we begin)

**Author's Note:**

> yep you guessed it it's another dousy hurt/comfort fic, nope i'm not going to stop anytime soon.
> 
> i just think daisy needs all the love and support she can get after everything she's been through in the last seven years, so i'm going to keep writing it for her lmao
> 
> title from 'sick of losing soulmates' by dodie because that line got stuck in my head and is the sole reason this fic exists

_ The tears stick in her throat, thick and burning and making it impossible to breathe. “You can’t do this,” she chokes, and the radio crackles, ignoring her pleas. _

_ She can’t - no, she can’t lose him again - not now, not like this, she remembers this. The radio crackles again, and then cuts off. She’s already on the floor, legs too weak to hold her, but she only sinks back against the cabinet behind her for a moment before finding a way to force herself up because she has to watch,  _ **_needs_ ** _ to watch. Lincoln is paying for her mistakes, and she can’t look away. _

_ The Quinjet’s signal flashes once, twice, three times, and she looks up in time to watch it explode.  _

_ She sinks to the floor. _

_ Sousa sinks to the floor beside her, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, eyes wide and breathing laboured. She holds his hand until it falls, limp. She watches him die knowing the day will reset and he’ll be asleep beside the healing chamber watching over her, but that doesn’t make the fading light in his eyes any easier to bear. He isn’t dying for her mistakes, not like Lincoln did, but he wouldn’t be dying here like this if not for her.  _

_ She blinks, and the crackling radio is back in her hand, Sousa’s body gone and his voice faint as he speaks from a distant Quinjet, moving further and further away. “I can’t just - I can’t just say goodbye,” she tells him, tears falling yet again, and these aren’t  _ **_his_ ** _ words because they were meant for someone else but they still cut right through her, tearing her throat to shreds, because they’re just as true now as they were the last time she said them.  _

_ She can’t lose him.  _

_ There isn’t a screen in the lab in real life, but there’s one here, and she can’t tear her eyes away. The Quinjet’s signal flashes once, twice, three times, and she looks up in time to watch it explode. _

Daisy jerks awake, heart pounding in her chest, too hot and too cold and too on edge to think straight, Sousa’s goodbye mixing around with Lincoln’s in her mind and producing one singular, terrifying mess that she doesn’t know what to do with. The chill emanating from cold concrete walls of the Lighthouse seems to have seeped into her bones, making her shiver, but she still pushes the thick, warm blankets away before she suffocates under them.

She wants to wipe the nightmare away, but the details stick with her. 

Lincoln, dying for her. Sousa, dying for her.

Daisy closes her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands roughly against them and making colours swim behind her eyelids. They’re still there when she opens her eyes, making the world in front of her blur, but the images engraved into her mind refuse to leave. This isn’t the same, there’s  _ nothing  _ the same, except for the fact that Sousa matters more to than anyone has in years and he’s good and kind and cares for her ( _ loves  _ her, she thinks, but she can’t even begin to process that now and the idea that she could feel the same way sends sparks of sheer terror shooting up her spine and she can’t, she  _ can’t  _ let this happen, not to him.)

But she  _ has  _ let it happen. She’s fallen for him, and she shouldn’t be allowed to because every time without fail that’s the beginning of the end.

_ ( Everywhere she goes, death follows.) _

Her eyes burn, and her lungs match, and the room swims. 

She needs to see him. 

It’s the middle of the night and her room is pitch black and the base will be dimly lit too, but she moves as if on autopilot, pushing open her door and slipping into the corridor without really considering what she’s doing. She needs to see him, she needs to watch him smile and hear him speak and feel his touch and calm her still-racing heart. She needs to relearn how to breathe.

Her hands are still shaking, and she can’t stop them. 

She’s not entirely sure she’s fully awake, but she bangs on Sousa’s door anyway, her frantic knock echoing in the otherwise silent hallway. The handful of seconds before it swings open under her fist feels like an eternity, and for a moment Sousa looks just as panicked as she feels, until his eyes land on her and somehow, without her offering any kind of explanation, he seems to understand.

The base isn’t falling apart - just her.

He softens, opening the door further, concern flooding his features. If she was a better person, perhaps she’d feel guilty for waking him - there’s still sleep in his eyes and his hair is a mess, and he’s clearly just rolled out of bed - he should still be sleeping, he’ll be exhausted in the morning. But she’s too busy to feel guilty. Instead, she’s consumed by relief as she watches Sousa frown, eyebrows curving down as his gaze flickers over her, taking in her bare feet and bleary eyes and still trembling hands.

He takes a breath, about to speak, chest expanding as he inhales. He’s  _ alive. _

She doesn’t mean for his name to slip from her lips, and she certainly doesn’t mean for it to come out as a desperate, broken sob, but she can’t stop it and the fractured syllables tumble into the space between them. She tries to breathe, but air refuses to enter her lungs. When he asks what’s wrong she has no explanation to give beyond  _ you died and he died and then you died like he died and that can’t happen, that can’t ever happen,  _ and she knows she’s not making sense to him but he doesn’t press for more, instead he simply opens his arms and she stumbles into them, colliding with his chest. She curls both hands into his t-shirt, one behind his back and one above his heart, feeling it beat steady and reassuring under fingertips.

“You’re okay,” Sousa murmurs softly, and that’s not what she needs to hear but he seems to realise that a moment later. His hand cups the back of her head, smoothing down her hair. “ _ I’m  _ okay.”

He  _ is  _ okay. 

For now, at least, but she’s falling more for him every day and the more she falls the more she has to lose and the bigger the risk is for him and the more likely it is he’ll end up like - 

_ No.  _

Her tears spill over and she buries her face in the crook of Sousa’s neck, the need to feel his arms around her overriding her need to pull away, to keep him safe. Her dreams weren’t real, they didn’t show the future. They didn’t show anything, beyond the fact that her messed up brain was finally overheating, memories piling on top of each other and twisting, tangling, until they became something new. Something worse. 

“I’m okay,” Sousa promises her for a second time, but doesn’t add anything else, just silently holds her until her tears subside. He holds her until she can breathe again, until her shaking hands loosen their grip on his t-shirt, until the images she’d come here to run from start to fade, memories once again separating from imagined scenarios. 

“Sorry,” she murmurs once she regains control of her voice, pulling back a little but avoiding Sousa’s eyes. His first finger strokes across her cheek and then gently catches under her chin, tilting her face up to give her no other option.

“No apologies,” he says softly, brushing the lightest of kisses against her forehead. If she was less exhausted, she’d probably feel embarrassed. 

"I woke you." 

She's stating the obvious again, but no other words seem to come to mind. Sousa's finger strokes across her cheek for a second time and his eyebrows curve down into a slight frown - not at her, but in response to the nightmare that had brought her to his door. "It looks like you needed to," he tells her.

She was glad he knew that with her having to say it.

"I needed to feel you breathing," she murmurs. "I couldn't tell whether this was like with Lincoln and I - I had to check, because it felt so  _ real  _ and - "

"Come sit down," Sousa says when her voice cracks yet again, guiding her over to his bed. They never spend much time in here; if they're chilling it's usually in her bunk, as it's closer to the open areas in the Lighthouse and also feels a little more personal than his thanks to Alya's drawings and the few possessions she has lying around. Even so, she feels more comfortable after she sinks down into his bed, helped by the familiar weight of his arm resting against her own.

She leans into his side, not caring that this whole scenario is perhaps a little too  _ relationshipy  _ for two people who are both determined to take things slow.

Daisy takes a careful, measured breath, and lets the silence wash over her.

“You’ve never asked," she says eventually, her words quiet. She picks at Sousa's blankets, but he doesn't reach over to stop her, just lets her fiddle with whatever she wants to and slips an arm around her waist as she adds "why not?"

Sousa frowns a little, confused, and Daisy realises that it is, in fact, the middle of the night and that question wasn’t exactly  _ clear.  _ She takes a shaky breath and tries again. “How come you’ve never asked about Lincoln?” 

Sousa’s thumb drifts across her hip, brushing ever so lightly across the slither of bare skin just above the waistband of her sweatpants, offering comfort rather than anything more. “Because I know enough,” he says simply. 

“I’ve asked about Peggy.”

She’s not entirely sure what argument she’s trying to make, but she makes it anyway.

Sousa shakes his head, as if to tell her that the ending to his and Peggy’s relationship was in no way comparable to her and Lincoln’s. They had ended things a while ago, he’d told her - technically decades ago - and on good terms. They had remained close. It wasn’t similar to her losing Lincoln, and she didn’t need to weigh up how much of their pasts they had told each other to find out who was lacking. 

(She was. She knew so much about him, but liked to keep things like this to herself.)

“I’ve heard things from the team,” Sousa admits, and Daisy tenses against his side without meaning to, the idea of Mack or Coulson or May telling him  _ this  _ making her uneasy, no matter how good their intentions. Sousa presses a light kiss to her temple, lips lingering against her skin, easing the tension from her shoulders. “Not anything you wouldn’t have wanted me to know,” he clarifies quietly. “They wouldn’t tell me anything that’s … _ yours _ … and I wouldn’t want them too.”

Of course he wouldn’t. He was the definition of chivalrous, and he’d never once pushed her for information she wouldn’t want to give. He wouldn’t go behind her back looking for answers either, he wasn’t that kind of person. Daisy exhales carefully, nodding. “Yeah. I know that. Sorry, I…”

“It’s okay.” 

His words wash over her, his breath warm against her skin, and that combined with the dim, gentle light of his bedside lamp and the comfort his presence was providing in the midst of her nightmare induced panic made her  _ want  _ to talk about this all, for the first time in years. 

“I know you’ll tell me when you’re ready,” Sousa tells her quietly, and she has to force the lump in her throat away before she has the chance to dwell on its cause. (Trust. It’s trust - complete, open, gentle trust - in her, in her process, in her timeline.) She reaches out for the hand that’s been tracing patterns across her hip and slips her fingers between his, finding comfort in how normal the gesture feels and how easily his hand seems to fit within her own. If Sousa was the calm, then Lincoln had been the storm. He’d had a fire that matched her own, a spark that lit her up and taught her how to be more, how to find her purpose, how to discover the person she was always meant to be.

That same spark had burnt them both to the ground.

She takes another breath, letting herself melt further into Sousa’s side. “I think I might be ready,” she admits softly, gaze still focused on Sousa’s hand intertwined with her own. 

He doesn’t ask her if she’s sure, or question whether this is the right time, and there it is again - that trust he’d had in her judgement from day one, that willingness to implicitly follow her lead, no matter what she was asking of him. It was one of the reasons she had started to fall for him in the first place, and months later that belief in her remained as firm and unwavering as it had always been.

She tells him it all.

Afterlife.

Meeting Lincoln.

Later, bringing him into SHIELD.

The vision.

Hive.

The people she hurt, the mess she made, the mistakes Lincoln had died to fix.

And then, for the first time, she tells him about losing him in the time loops, about his dumb heroic sacrifice. She details their surprise and elation at first when he seemed to have survived Enoch's trap, and then the devastation that immediately followed. She tells him about watching the life drain from his eyes, about sitting on the floor of the lab until the world brightened and faded and the day started again because she didn't know what to do in a world that didn't have him in it. He understands. At least, she thinks he does, because she remembers the look on his face when he first heard that she had died in order to beat the Chronicoms and it was only Kora's power that had brought her back. Even if it was only for a split second, he had felt that same despair, that same sharp pain, that same emptiness.

By the time she finishes the lights in the hallway are starting to flicker on as the rest of the team wake up and move about the base, and for a second Daisy contemplates moving too, pulling on a sweater and going to join May and Coulson and whoever else is awake in the kitchen before Sousa has the chance to respond to the weight she has just poured onto him, but she can't convince her heavy limbs to move. 

She turns so she's sitting cross legged, her knee resting gently against his thigh, and for the first time that evening finds herself face to face with him. He tucks her hair behind her ear, his touch even softer than before.

She kisses him. She's not sure who moves first - he leans in at the exact time she does, his warm hand gently resting against her shoulder as she lets hers slide over his heart, feeling it beat steadily under her palm. His lips are soft, and his heart is softer. One hand slips into her hair and she relishes in the way his fingers feel against his skin, instantly wanting more but knowing that this was neither the time or the place for it. Sparks dance across her skin in every spot he touches, and she gasps when his teeth toy with her lower lip.

He's alive.

And he makes her feel more alive too.

It's only when he pulls away that the plea appears. She rests her forehead against his, trying to catch her breath, knowing that this was something they both needed but hating that she can't keep her mouth shut for long enough to let the moment last, because the words bubble up, unprompted, egged on by her fear of losing him a second time. "Don't ever do something like that again," she whispers, her voice thick with quick to return tears.

Sousa's silence drags on, and she drops her head down to rest her forehead against his shoulder. 

Her breath feels like ice coursing through her lungs, sharp and painful. "I'll always want you there to pick me back up. Always, I swear. I just - enough people have sacrificed themselves for me in the past, and - and I can't live through that again."

She looks up when Sousa remains silent, and when she gently traces the outline of his face, desperate for a reminder that he's still there in front of her, he shakes his head. His eyes swim with the sincerest apology she's ever seen. For the first time, she's asked him for something he can't give her.

“ _ Please, _ ” she begs, and Sousa kisses her. 

It’s slower this time. Gentler. 

Daisy doesn’t dare put a name to the feeling she can feel growing more and more every second she spends with him. 

“If I asked you to stop getting yourself into situations where you might get hurt, could you?” he asks, and she has to shake her head. He toys with a strand of her hair, and then tucks it back behind her ear. He’s not surprised by her answer - he’s made it clear that he knows this about her, and his willingness to stand behind her and offer whatever help she needs is one of the reasons she fell for him in the first place. “It’s just who you are. You want to fix things, and help people.”

It’s a plea and another apology all rolled into one. It’s a  _ please, understand that this is who I am too.  _

“I’ll never be able to stand by and watch you get hurt when I could prevent that,” he tells her honestly, and she wishes just once that she’d fall for someone less heroic. (No, she’s tried that - that didn’t work out well for her either.) She swallows lightly, forcing herself to keep her mind on the moment, and Sousa sighs. 

He knows how much this means to her. She can see it in his eyes, feel it in the way he’s holding her, the way his fingertips gently caress her skin, the sad, guilt ridden smile he gives her just before he speaks. “I wish i could tell you what you want to hear,” he says softly, and it’s his sincerity that gets to her this time, causing a lump to lodge itself in her throat. She shakes her head, because it isn’t fair to make him continue down this path. Not like this. She shouldn’t keep making him justify a hypothetical attempt to save her, knowing full well that the reassurance she wants isn’t coming. 

“Does it make it better if I say it wouldn’t entirely be about you?” Sousa asks, taking Daisy by surprise. “I’m still a soldier at heart. I swore to protect people, and that didn’t just end when the war did. If sacrificing myself could save lives, I would - for you, for Alya, for Jemma or Fitz or Mack or Kora or any of the others - if need be.”

That  _ hurts. _ But… in an odd, twisted way, it  _ does  _ ease the fear that has settled in the pit of Daisy’s stomach. Because what Sousa is trying to tell her, she thinks, is that if he needed to take a calculated risk he would - just like she would - but he would never act as rashly as Lincoln had when he stole her destiny from her, and he wouldn’t act differently in a dangerous situation with her compared to with others. She doesn’t know why, but Sousa’s willingness to die for any of the people he has come to care for is a lot easier to stomach than the idea of him being willing to die solely for her. 

She’d die for them all too. 

“It’s messed up that that’s better,” she murmurs, and Sousa nods. 

“But it is?”

“It is.” 

Daisy closes her eyes and exhales shakily. She can still faintly hear people moving around outside - the bunks in the Lighthouse are well built, but not soundproof - but she’s exhausted by now, a combination of her lack of sleep and the emotional toll of spilling the weight of the past to Sousa. He sinks down into bed, pulling her down with him and easing the covers up over them both, and although they haven’t shared a bed more than a handful of times they fit together as comfortably as could be. Sousa lightly kisses her temple, then the top of her forehead.

It was the nightmare that had shaken her most of all, and now she’s managed to separate real events from time loops and her imagination, the fear that had overwhelmed her earlier has faded.

“I’m not planning on dying any time soon,” Sousa tells her softly, and it’s odd that that’s something she needs to hear, but after everything she’s lived through since first setting foot inside the SHIELD bus seven years ago, it is. 

“Good.” 

_ Because I think I’m falling in love with you. _

Sousa’s arm curls around her back, holding her close, his palm warm against her back as she curls into his chest. “Sleep,” he murmurs, and Daisy does. She sleeps knowing he’s watching her back, and that he’ll do everything he can to keep watching her back for as long as possible. She sleeps knowing that although he can’t make the promises she asked for, he’s not one to make quick or reckless decisions, he’s calm and trusting and reliable and would rather help her come up with a solid, well founded plan to avoid her getting hurt than interject and change things at the last minute. He would rather work with her to keep everyone safe than solely try to save  _ her. _

She sleeps knowing he’s alive, one hand curled over his heart.

When she wakes up in his arms late in the afternoon, although that terror of letting herself love him only to lose him remains, it doesn’t feel like it did in the dark the night before when she had frantically come to find him, desperately hoping for promises he would never make her. Instead, she can see the slithers of sunlight slipping through the clouds. 

She’ll never be able to let go of the past entirely. The marks it had left on her didn’t seem to be going anywhere, no matter how much time passed, but Sousa didn’t seem to care and he had proven that over and over - he had told her he wanted to be there to pick her back up again and he was, every time she needed him, without fail.

He was okay.

She’d be okay. 

They’d all be okay in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr (@z-tomaz) if you want to see me continually obsessing over daisy
> 
> if you liked this, check out the other fics chim (@moonlitprincess) and i are writing for this series!!


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